The present invention relates to a motherboard of a desktop, and more specifically, to a motherboard with a 4-pin ATX power male connector.
With the advance of electronic science and technology, the multimedia computers have high audio and video quality. And the increasing use of personal computers also has driven the development of computer industry to become more vigorous. For instance, PENTIUM 4, the fourth generation CPU manufactured by Intel, has a more fine and complicated internal frame fabricated with the process of 0.13 micrometer to provide powerful computing functions. However, with the structures of the CPU becoming more enormous and complicated, and the power consumption thereof has increased substantially. And it is a challenge to apply the prior power supply configured to provide sufficient power for driving the PENTIUM 4(copyright).
Please refer to FIG. 1A, where the motherboard applied to support the PENTIUM 4 CPU is illustrated. The components configured on the motherboard comprise a socket 12 to mount the PENTIUM 4(copyright) CPU from Intel Corp. and a chipset 14 constituted with a memory controller hub (MCH). Besides, four sets of RIMM sockets 16 located on the motherboard are applied to mount memory devices, and an accelerated graphics port (AGP) 18 is designed to mount a graphic card. And five sets of PCI ports 20 are applied to install expansion cards.
It is noted that according to the motherboard specification prior to the PENTIUM 4 CPU, only the ATX power supply male connector 22 with twenty pins is configured on the motherboard 10 to provide the power for driving various components thereon as shown in FIG. 1B. And only one pin (Pin 1) of the ATX power male connector 22 is applied to provide 12 volts of DC voltage for the CPU operation, as shown in FIG. 1B. The other pins thereof are applied to provide +5 or +3.3 volts DC power or ground for driving the chips and devices on the motherboard 10.
However, abundant power is required to provide the CPU operating in a stable state because the PENTIUM 4 CPU has an normous core frame and higher execution rate. For the purpose of preventing the computers from crashing frequently due to lack of power supply, a square male connector 24 is provided by Intel in the specification of motherboard for providing the PENTIUM 4 CPU an extra +12 volts power supply. As illustrated in FIG. 1B, the square connector 24 has four pins arranged in a square. Two pins (+12V DC) of the square connector 24 are applied to provide +12 volts of DC power and the other two pins (GND) are applied to connect to ground.
Because of applying the above four pins to provide an extra +12 volts for the PENTIUM 4 CPU, it is required to add a new connector of power supply suitable to the specification of the PENTIUM 4. Please refer to FIG. 2, in which the power supply 30 supporting the motherboard of the PENTIUM 4 is illustrated. The power supply 30 has four types of power lines. An ATX female connector 32 with twenty pins can connect with the 20-pins (20-pins) ATX male connector 22 to provide power for the CPU and the chips on the motherboard 10. And a large 4-pins female connector 34, called a 5.25 inches (5.25 inch) drive connector (P7), is applied to connect and drive peripheral devices such as hard disks and CD-ROM drives. As to a small 4-pins female connector 36, called a 3.5 inch drive connector (P9), is applied to connect and drive the soft diskettes. Besides, a square female connector 38 with four pins is applied to connect with the square male connector 24 on the motherboard 10 to provide power for CPU operation.
However, for the present desktops, the ATX power supply only includes the above 20-pins ATX female connector, the 5.25 inches drive female connector and the 3.5 inches drive female connector. Namely, there is no extra square female connector suitable to the motherboard of the PENTIUM 4. Thus, when consumers want to upgrade their present desktops with a PENTIUM 4 motherboard and CPU, they have to pay much money to buy the new ATX power supply 30 with the extra square female connector 24 for supporting the specification of the PENTIUM 4.
Therefore, how to provide sufficient power for the operation of the PENTIUM 4 CPU based on the present ATX power supplies and housings is an important issue. And for the consumer, they can still use their prior ATX power supply to provide an extra +12 volts of DC power for supporting the PENTIUM 4 motherboard and ensuring the reliability and stability of operations thereof.
One purpose of the present invention is to provide a motherboard that can support processors such as the PENTIUM 4 and above for satisfying the prior ATX power supply.
Another purpose of the present invention is to provide a motherboard with multiple power supply connectors, whereby the prior ATX power supply can be applied to provide the PENTIUM 4 CPU enough power.
The present invention provides a motherboard with a multiple power supply. The components formed on the motherboard comprise a 20-pins ATX power male connector and a 4-pins ATX power male connector. The 20-pins ATX power male connector is coupled electrically with devices and a CPU socket on the motherboard through circuits thereon. And the 4-pins ATX power male connector with four pins configured in line is applied to provide individually +12 volts/ground/ground/+5 volts power. The 4-pins ATX power male connector is coupled electrically with the CPU socket.